In the first place, if that was the substantive distinction in your mind, why the devil didn't you say that,
How many times and in how many ways do you wish I had said it?
At least once would have been nice.
Are you arguing the point or just attacking my delivery or lack of it?
Lack of delivery. If you brought up your horse, or an equivalent, in any post prior to your tirade at Emily in #3781, I didn't see it and I presume she didn't either. If you did, feel free to point out where; but if so, #3781 would have been a good place to remind her instead of groundlessly accusing her of dishonesty.
To explain your distinction, the question you still need to address is: what sort of protection do you consider a 38-week undelivered fetus to be worthy of?
I don’t feel like I owe anyone an explanation for the obvious. It deserves maternal protection. Probably.
These matters do not lend to humane or just summary judgments.
What does "maternal protection" mean to you? Do you mean the normal level of protection that a typical mother typically gives a 38-week fetus, or the specific level of protection a given 38-week fetus's own mother chooses to provide, or what?
For that matter, what sort of protection do you consider a horse to be worthy of? A horse-owner's protection? The protection you'd afford your own horse? Societal protection? The protection of a society of animal lovers or of a society of people who consider horses capital equipment? Suppose Emily had advocated laws against cruelty to animals -- would you accuse her of "irrational advocacies for laws that hurt people and benefit nobody" over that? You've already stipulated that a horse doesn't count as somebody, after all.
Let me ask you - do you consider a fetus to be a “person”?
Depends on degree of development.
At conception? Viability? Or birth (no longer a fetus)
No, yes and yes. To me it seems painfully obvious that a baby is a person, and that includes preemies. It's seems painfully obvious to me that personhood is a property of the thing-in-itself, not a property of its environment. Here's an analogy. I'm open to the whole Great Ape Project -- by normal biological nomenclature rules one of our related species should be called Homo troglodytes, not Pan troglodytes. Well, to my mind, saying a 30-week fetus is a person if he's in an ICU being incubated but a non-person if he's in a womb is as absurd as saying a chimp is a person if she's in a primate researcher's home being taught American Sign Language but a non-person if she's in the wild in Congo.
But it's also painfully obvious that person and nonperson are fuzzy categories. A fetus isn't a nonperson one day and a person the next -- it's in a gradual process of becoming more and more personish over a period of weeks. Three months: 0% personish. Seven months: 100% personish. Five months: somewhere in between. How far in between? Heck if I know. Not my field of specialization.
Moreover, it's painfully obvious to me that personhood depends on degree of brain development, while viability depends mainly on degree of lung development and on degree of technology development. So when I say "yes" to your "Viability" question, that's a 2025 answer -- I do not think a normal preemie whose lungs are developed enough for us to keep alive with a 2025 neonatal ICU has a brain so undeveloped I'd consider it more nonpersonish than personish. But of course that could change. I make no claim about the personhood of a hypothetical viable 15-week fetus being grown to term in a hypothetical 2060-era artificial womb.
I hope that answers your incessant pestering. I don't think any of my above opinions bear on the points you and I have been squabbling over, so I think you didn't have a good reason for demanding to know -- I think you were only on a fishing expedition for some excuse to reverse burden-of-proof. But whatever. You have my answer. Feel free to see what argument you can make from it.
What protection does it “deserve”, from what, and why?
Why do you ask? I haven't made any claim about who deserves what. That was all you and Emily. As for me, I'm open-minded on the topic and will read with interest arguments in all directions*.
(* Until they get too repetitive.)
Is it “worth” more, less, or same as the mother?
"Worth"
to whom? A (38-week) fetus is worth more than the mother
to the fetus, but the mother is worth more than the fetus
to the mother*. If you're looking for a judgment of their
objective worth, ask somebody who believes in that sort of metaphysical nonsense.
(* Typically. There are of course a few mothers who'd willingly die to save their unborn child.)
I have answered all those questions for you, and I get no argument on those answers, just attacks for untimely clarification (upon demand, no less) and contorted “what if” garbage.
And? You made arguments about Emily that depended on unclear premises. You're the one who had burden-of-proof. I get that you don't like being cross-examined on your claims, but that doesn't make trying to cross-examine me on my non-claims a legit defense.
PS the U.S. Constitution assumes that rights not explicitly reserved by it are held by the people. This principle is articulated in the Ninth and Tenth Amendments.
No. "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people." That isn't "We don't mention lollipops; therefore you have a right to a lollipop." That's "We do mention subpoenas; that doesn't mean if you had a right to a lollipop we'd have mentioned it." You're reversing burden-of-proof. If you think you have a right to a lollipop it's up to you to prove it, with something more than "Well, the COTUS doesn't say I don't."
States can outlaw whatever they want unless those rights are granted federally. Until that happens, like it did with the overturning of two precedent cases and the flurry of ensuing State bans, the Constitution says in plain language that such rights are held by the people.
True. It's right here: "No State shall ... pass any Bill of Attainder, ex post facto Law...". But once a State passes a law the people lose a right. You have a right to help yourself to a lollipop whether the owner likes it or not, until the State passes a law against theft.
You are obviously MUCH better at physics. This is a foundational principle of this democracy, as I learned in grade school and have heard repeated from on high innumerable times since.
Dude, this is an infidel forum. Argument from authority doesn't carry much weight. Especially not argument from authority of an unnamed 1950s-era elementary school teacher. You keep writing glosses of Constitutional provisions that the actual text doesn't support.
If you disagree please cite where the Constitution denies the people rights not reserved by it.
Been there, done that, upthread. The 10th amendment implies the people's rights don't include everything the feds don't control -- the states get to control some of it.
